Articles - Whiteoaks PR

Remember Facebook circa 2010? Brands took to the platform and it made a significant impact. Like all things digital, Facebook has evolved since then, in fact the whole paid and organic social media landscape has. What this means is with the algorithm changes (for Facebook specifically) reach, impact and engagement isn’t what it once was.

Don’t worry though – paid social media is here to save the day.

Or is it?

Let’s be clear: organic social still has a role to play in your digital marketing strategy. It is the ideal platform to tell your brand story, it’s built around community and it’s not necessarily about target driven results.

Tied into community management, something that’s become more of a focus over the last two or three years, is employee advocacy. Your employees can be your strongest advocates and when they take to social media to convey that, it has a positive impact on your brand in terms of amplification of content, visibility, shareability and share of voice.

Organic is also the ideal testing ground for the paid side of things because you can see what content resonates with which audiences and how they are engaging with your content. Those learnings, building up a clear profile of your audiences over time, can be applied to your paid strategy.

Why should you use paid social then? It’s not just used to boost organic content. It’s a lot more targeted than that. Those strategies are built around campaigns and specific objectives and typically across B2B are designed to generate an action.

So think about targeted content like eBooks, webinars and whitepapers, leveraging your best content. You can use these to fuel your paid campaigns across platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. With LinkedIn specifically, there is the opportunity to be really targeted across things like personas, industry, job title, age, geography, company size… the list goes on. You can use it to find and engage with new audiences.

The key thing about these types of targeted campaigns is that they can be measured and you can determine your ROI. While paid gets the quick-fire results based on specific campaigns, having organic running concurrently building your brand story and presence provides longevity.

Using both paid and organic social media together makes sense. And when you’re using social as part of a larger PR and marketing strategy, they pack a powerful punch for reaching those objectives – be it lead generation, brand awareness or expansion.

If you’d like to chat about the opportunity that paid and social media can deliver to your business, please get in touch.

As part of our The Question of Trust research, we spoke to marketing leaders from a host of B2B tech businesses. We got their insights on trust building, how to do it, how to overcome any challenges and how the process of maintaining trust and customer loyalty were affected by the pandemic.

This is what Martijn Groot, VP Marketing & Strategy at Alveo Technology had to say:

“I think what we saw during the pandemic was that it is very easy to engage on a superficial level in the sense of filling up webinar rooms, at least initially.

I think during the year, there was a certain fatigue of webinars and online events.

At the same time, I think there’s this digital bombardment of mailings, and everyone is taking pot-shots at buyers or influencers in companies.

But, in that war for attention using creative subject lines as well as tactics, there have been big developments in marketing automation, in the personalisation of websites or portals that people go through.

It’s easy to send content and get reactions and get downloads and get webinar attendance. Getting one-to-one meetings, that has been hard because things were postponed during the year and there wasn’t a reason for the buyer to engage.”

Q: What are the best ways to build trust?
The brand is important. Comms are important, so try to come up with relevant content, certainly be consistent in your messaging.

The best content in my view, and I’ve also been a buyer on the other side, is case studies, testimonials, or insightful commentary on challenges that I would face as a buyer. Anything from relevant peers which is the most credible content. Together with that kind of content, it’s anything from trusted third parties.

Part of our outreach has also been to the rest of the ecosystem, so people that we have a shared interest with, for example, selection consultants, or services companies that complement what we do in adjacent fields, both from the perspective of using them to help us in direct influencing, but also to team up to offer a more comprehensive solution to target accounts. Our outreach is not only to prospects, but also to influencers in the ecosystem.

In terms of building trust, I think it’s targeted comms on what you do, what’s coming down the pipe to your clients, report on service levels. We share roadmap information, so try to be transparent and consistent. Also, of course, you have to do what you say that you will do to your clients.

To prospects, it is as I mentioned, about, if possible, show them something that one of their peers has solved using our solutions, that will work best.

Q: Did that kind of approach change at all over the pandemic?
I think it changed in the sense that, on the marketing side, which is my department, we’ve certainly done more to get more out of our marketing automation toolset. Like HubSpot and making sure we’re using the content properly.

We’ve also accelerated micro-targeting that I mentioned, using our partner network, and still trying to make it all more personable, even though it’s digital.

We also have the comms come from the salesperson and offer something like brief consulting sessions with an SME, 30-minute or an hour call, where you’re not trying to sell them something.

Overall, we tried to be relevant. Have relevant content and then build on that.

Q: What are the biggest barriers to building trust with customers and prospective customers?
It’s been harder to get meetings, again, probably because early on pre-pandemic, it was easier to just have a coffee with somebody, sit down and interact more, let’s say, informally.

On the bright side, maybe the pandemic has, I guess, changed the etiquette of business meetings a little bit, that it’s now a custom to have video chat immediately. Maybe two years ago, we would have had this conversation over the phone or in person. There was this, I would say, an intermediary step that you can look each other in the eye, but it’s still digital.

On the digital side, the biggest challenge has been gauging the intent of people. I think marketing and market automation can play a bigger role.

Q: Where do you see the biggest opportunities for PR and marketing in building trust?
For the customers, it’s clear concise communication and regular updates. Don’t bombard them. Be selective in what you send to people and be relevant. Transparency is helpful.

For the prospects, it’s pretty much the same. It’s wherever possible, of course, and this is, to me, the most valuable content. You have to make sure that you give them what they need to go to the next step or make them think, which is more the thought leadership, and make sure the lightbulb goes off and they have this aha moment and they will look at you. Maybe otherwise they would not have ever considered it.

By Mark Wilson, Creative Director

We all love a good podcast – from true crime and football fantasy, to epic cookery and comedy. There is a podcast on every topic.

But it’s not just entertainment. And content isn’t just directed at consumers. I’ll say it again… there is a podcast on every topic. Business, tech, creative, advertising, tech PR, HR… the list goes on. As a business owner or marketing professional you’ve most likely already asked the question: how can podcasts help my business?

The answer is simple.

The right podcast, with engaging and informative content, can be used in much the same way as any other PR and marketing asset. It is a great vehicle to support your objectives, and can be used to fuel awareness of your brand, generate leads and demonstrate thought leadership.

The best thing about podcasts is that they are so versatile — giving you almost carte blanche when it comes to format. Q&A, monologue, conversational, panel… the choice is yours. Depending on your objective and your content, of course.

And again, just like with other marketing and PR assets, the podcast is best used as part of a balanced campaign mix, covering off a range of different assets for every touchpoint; social, video, eBooks and the likes. Not everyone consumes content in the same way so it’s important to give your audience options and make it easy for them to engage with your brand.

The podcast is also the perfect tool to humanise your business and give your customers and potential customers insights into the people behind the brand. You can talk about your values, highlight your staff or simply give them valuable content in a personalised way, whether that’s coming from a subject matter expert or your CEO.

Another key element that podcasts can help with is credibility. We all know that having your existing clients talk about their successes and positive experiences with your business is a valuable sales tool. Also think about employee advocacy; having your team talk about their experiences, career growth and why they enjoy their jobs can help boost that assurance for prospective clients but also help attract the right candidates for new roles.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t a simple answer. But the facts are clear around the value that a professionally executed and promoted podcast can deliver to your business. Whether that’s providing a window into your brand and your team, reinforcing what you stand for or demonstrating your expertise and thought leadership to the market, podcasts are definitely worth considering for your brand.

By Ella Thompson, Senior Account Director

The value of crisis comms has really come to the forefront in recent years for obvious reasons. But having a crisis comms strategy in place encompasses so much more. Most experienced marketers will have dealt with some form of crisis in the past, however large or small, but it’s worth repeating that a crisis, according to the Institute for Crisis Management is a “Significant business disruption which stimulates extensive media (and social media) coverage. The resulting public scrutiny will affect the organisation’s normal operations and also could have a political, legal, financial and governmental impact on the business.”

Undoubtedly there have been many lessons learned from the pandemic, but moving forward, how do those lessons apply to your overall strategy? Taking a step back, there is a multitude of different disruptions that can happen to a business from cybersecurity hacks to natural disasters, and a good crisis comms plan will have a plan of action in place for as many eventualities as possible. In the event of a crisis, the media want the exclusive and this can have an impact on the accuracy of initial reports. This becomes even more difficult for companies because in the social media world, unsubstantiated rumours can be reported as fact and spread quickly, audiences may believe a company is hiding something if it does not respond immediately to a request for information.

There are many pitfalls in dealing with the media in a crisis and plenty of real-life examples from some of the biggest companies in the world on how not to handle a crisis. First off, you need to reach your target audiences quickly and minimise the spread of misinformation. Regardless of how much you know at the time, it’s important to take action quickly, stick to the facts, don’t speculate on what could have caused the crisis or the extent of it because that is when misinformation can spread. Your spokespeople need to be responsive and offer straightforward and accurate information.

While external communications with the media are important, internal communications should play a big part in your plan as well. Your employees need to know what is happening. By doing this you avoid your employees speculating about what is happening and therefore reduce the spread of misinformation. It can also be very important for morale. If your employees feel that they are being kept in the dark then this will not endear them to the company and you could see people’s loyalty waiver. Therefore, it is important to have a dedicated resource or channel to communicate with employees and respond to their desire for information.

One of the major changes to crisis comms over time is the speed in which you are expected to respond to crises – over 20 years ago information didn’t spread nearly as quickly, so companies would have far more time to gather the information on what has happened and then make a statement. Nowadays in the age of social media and rapid news cycles, companies have to react quickly to these problems. They need to act quickly and state what they know then gather as much information as possible to stay on top on the spread of misinformation. Social media has now become the main source of communicating with their stakeholders, allowing the company to quickly reach a large proportion of their audience.

Although the channels and speed at which you need to communicate your message during a crisis have changed quite drastically – the core principles of crisis communication will stay the same over time:

– Plan for tomorrow
– Respond rapidly
– Work with local authorities
– Position your management front and centre
– What you say must reflect what you do
– Be open and honest
– Demonstrate concern and convey integrity
– Speak with one voice
– Talk to stakeholders directly

If the future of crisis communications follows in the same path that it has taken so far then it is imperative for companies to have a comprehensive plan that allows them to adapt, change and communicate effectively in the event of any crisis. Companies are being held to account of their actions now more than ever and they are given less time to explain themselves – but if you stick to the core principles then it could be the difference between success and failure.

A crisis doesn’t mean the end for a company, it is how they deal with that crisis that determines their outcome.

By Hannah Buckley, Head of Content

A popular topic of discussion in the world of PR and marketing is the role of content and the question ‘is content still king?’ is one that comes up from time to time. For us at Whiteoaks, there is no doubt that content is still king. After all, what else could you rely on to do everything from building trust with your audience and guiding customers through the sales funnel, to demonstrating your expertise and boosting brand awareness?

Content is multifaceted and, with a solid content strategy directing your efforts, every single piece can open you up to a world of opportunity.

No matter your business objectives, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, community engagement, lead generation, or anything else, a well-executed content strategy will set the stage for success and help you achieve your goals.

When it comes to content marketing, for example, those who have a strategy in place are much more likely to be in the category of successful companies, according to a recent Statista report.

So how does that play out in the real world? With 70% of B2B decision-makers saying that content marketing has helped them achieve their lead generation goals, let’s see how you can align your content strategy with this goal…

#1 Define your target audience
If you’re aiming to generate leads, the starting point is ensuring you can reach your intended audience. This means developing personas which encapsulate who those audiences are so that their needs and wants are front of mind when it comes to what you create and how you share it. This will help to ensure your content not only reaches them but also resonates.

By segmenting your audience based on these personas, you can tailor your content more precisely to meet their different needs. As experts in your industry, you understand the challenges your customers are facing, therefore, you can align certain pain points to different segments and create content with the intention of helping them to overcome those issues.

Taking this approach will also help to cement your identity as an authority within your industry.

#2 Nurture the relationship
A vital part of content marketing is understanding that different content is needed for each of the different stages of the buyers’ journey. After all, the requirements and intentions of someone at the awareness stage are likely to be very different to those of someone who is almost at the point of making a decision about whether to buy from you. As such, this should be a key consideration of your content strategy to ensure you influence leads and nurture the relationship.

Mapping out the different stages of the journey and determining what types of content are right for each stage, whether that’s evergreen content you’ve produced previously or new content you need to create, will help you with this and will be crucial to achieve your ultimate goal of turning a lead into a customer.

#3 There’s more than one channel
From print media, such as trade publications, and third-party websites, to social networking sites and your own blog, there are a great many channels on which you can now share content in its many guises.

By understanding how your target audience interacts with each channel, the types of content that perform well on each and what they want from content, you can share content to greater effect.

Some channels may be more effective at generating leads at different points in your campaign. By monitoring this, you can ensure your efforts are optimised and each channel is used as effectively as possible.

#4 Don’t stop once you convert…
A vital point to remember about using content for lead generation is that engagement shouldn’t stop purely because you’ve managed to convert. Rather, content is key to retention.

Your customers are also an excellent source of content as once you’ve built that relationship you can approach them for testimonials which you can then feed into your content strategy and use for future lead generation. With research finding that testimonials can help businesses generate 62% more revenue from every customer, it’s certainly a valuable type of content to have at your disposal!

As you can see, when it comes to content, the possibilities are endless and armed with an expertly crafted and well-executed content strategy you can make the most of every opportunity it presents.

By Sophie Sadler, Senior Account Director

One of the longest running discussions we have with clients is about the face off between trade and national coverage. Which is better? Which most benefits the business? Which delivers the most value?

In the B2B tech space, you’re often spoilt for choice with specific titles that potentially better serve your brand’s audiences, despite smaller overall readerships. But you also have the bright, shiny lights of national or broadcast coverage, with the attraction of higher audience figures and the prestige that comes with being featured in such widely known names.

In my opinion, the question shouldn’t be which is better, trade or national media, but rather, which will serve your purposes better. For example, if you are positioning your brand for an M&A or investment, then national coverage makes more sense. However if the goal is launching a new solution aimed at a specific set of customers, then trade media will yield the most value.

National coverage is the idea vehicle to generate top of the funnel awareness and address higher level and c-level issues. It also helps with the searchability of your brand online and SEO because national publications lend significant authority to search. There’s also no question that it’s unbeatable in terms of reach and it does deliver your message to a much wider audience.

But in the example above, wider audience isn’t necessarily always a good thing. Trade media has the benefit of having niche titles that are targeted at your target market. More than that, with trade publications, there is the opportunity to build relationships with the journalists, and a better chance to tell your story more in-depth; whether that’s related to pain points, profiling or thought leadership. The opportunities are also more frequent, guaranteeing more consistent coverage over a longer period of time. And that’s not to discount the impact that trade coverage can have on SEO, with more chance of making use of backlinks in articles, something that is near impossible with the nationals.

After weighing it up, it’s clear that shouldn’t come down to a face off between trade and national coverage. Depending on your objectives, the two should (and can) complement one another to support you reaching your communication goals. It’s not about choosing the best option, but creating the best mix of coverage that is going to benefit your business.

If you’re looking for your own answer to the question, keep three things in mind: What are you trying to achieve? What are your timescales? And which mix will deliver the greatest value?

Feel free to get in touch to discuss.

By Mark Wilson, Creative Director

Brand development can sometimes be a daunting task. The thought of overhauling your brand, changing everything and moving away from what you know is a big undertaking. But brand development may not be as daunting and fear-inducing as you first think. In this article, I’ll talk about why brand development doesn’t necessarily mean a complete rebrand by answering three simple questions.

What is brand development?

Firstly, branding is very much the face of your company; it’s how people perceive you and governs their instant reactions when they hear your name or see your product. Brand development is how that brand evolves and develops to ensure that they are staying current. Development can take different forms, such as imagery, tone of voice, messaging, typography, colour, communication channels.

This leads me to my next point, about how brand development isn’t all about changing everything. There are many different intensities to brand development. It could be small tweaks to your imagery and icons or it could be a complete rebranding with a name change and new messaging that is aimed at a new target audience.

A good example of tweaking your brand to constantly evolve is Google – they are always updating logos and icons that generally goes under the radar but ensures their look is current.

Why is it important?

The importance of brand development is easy to understate and sometimes companies don’t realise the importance of it. It’s the face of your company – it’s the first thing people see and think of when your name is mentioned. I always compare it to a news feed; when you look at a news feed that is out of date your perception of it changes and you are unlikely to spend much more time looking through that feed. Whereas, if it’s current, you’re likely to revisit.

Brands are very much the same – you need to stay current to make sure that people trust you are up to the task, especially in comparison to your competitors. It’s no use if you’re a cutting-edge tech company that sells state of the art software but your branding is dated. Your brand needs to reflect the product or service that you are selling.

Where do you start?

This one is a hard one because different factors determine how you develop and what you develop. I look at it in two ways – do you have an old brand, where your brand is established and been around for a long time but needs to be updated? Or are you a new brand that has finished the brand launch and are unsure where to go from there?

Looking at it from the old brand point of view – you may have a good offering and a healthy client base but need to re-energise the brand. My first recommendation would be to look at the core messaging to make sure that it is still relevant and resonating with the audience. From that you can evolve your visual identity, by creating a new website, introducing more colours and imagery to give your brand a modern look and feel that can give you a competitive edge.

Now to look at the other position of the new brand, where it hasn’t been long since you introduced the new brand. Should you develop the brand any further? If the brand is very new, then you need a ‘settling-in’ period to make sure that you get some time to increase brand awareness. If you start changing bits about your brand straight away it’s an uphill battle to create some awareness with your target audience. Then I’d recommend starting slowly – don’t jump straight into changing the logo or colours, it can be as simple as changing a few images on your website to keep it modern and up to date. Once you have some brand awareness then you can start to look at refining and moving into new areas, such as channels.

It’s easy to want to constantly update and develop your brand but before you do make sure to look at whether your brand is still resonating with the audience. If it is then there is little reason to make drastic changes. But if you feel that your brand isn’t working with your current audience or are aiming at a new audience then it might be time for a refresh; feel free to get in touch with me to discuss how we could help develop your brand.

By James Kelliher, CEO

If there’s one thing that last year has highlighted to business, it’s the value of crisis communications and the importance of having the right strategy in place to deal with said crisis.

But before we start using words like “unprecedented” and “new normal”, it may help to take a step back and ask ourselves what a crisis is — the first step in dealing with one. Simply stated, a crisis is a significant event that results in high levels of scrutiny which has the potential to affect an organisation’s normal operations.

Looking at 2020, the defining feature when it comes to the crisis is that the pandemic has affected all organisations; it’s a global challenge. Yes, it has impacted businesses differently in terms of customer service, logistics, supply chain, etc., but overall, everyone has been affected.

That said, the basic principles of crisis comms still apply and haven’t changed. What may change, and certainly should change, is the way we approach planning given the benefit of hindsight and experience from last year.

A case in point is scenario planning; a successful crisis comms plan includes preparing for a host of potential crises e.g. an executive scandal, data breach or natural disaster. Now, however, and moving forward, we’ll be including managing the impact of a global pandemic.

Because one key piece of advice we offer our clients is that you shouldn’t do crisis comms planning during a crisis. It can lead to hasty (and poor) decision making and a less than favourable outcome for the business and its stakeholders.

Our current situation might be an anomaly, but it has demonstrated how important the core principles are:

– Plan for tomorrow
– Respond rapidly
– Work with local authorities
– Position your management front and centre
– Be open and honest
– Demonstrate concern and convey integrity
– Speak with one voice

It has also highlighted the importance of accuracy. During a crisis, it is crucial for businesses to only communicate what they know to be true. Speculation is never advised. Earlier on in the pandemic this came into sharp focus with many brands falling short after making bold statements about impact, job losses, etc. when they simply didn’t have the information available to back that up.

Brands that fared well include those that admitted what they didn’t know but balanced that with making it clear what their plans were to deal with the crisis.

Looking ahead, it’s natural that the crisis comms landscape will continue to evolve, shaped by external factors — much like it’s changed from the 1990s (when it was primarily media relations focused) to now where multiple audiences are important and the use of social media makes it simultaneously more challenging yet easier to monitor what is being communicated.

While COVID has certainly taught us a lot, it’s the adherence to the basic principles and being prepared that will help organisations through. It’s about being proactive, understanding the situation and having the tools at your disposal (like the right message communicated to the right audiences) to ensure you’re addressing the crisis and demonstrating that you have a handle on things, even when there is information that you don’t yet know.

We’re a deliberately different kind of tech PR agency. Here are the six reasons why:
#1 Set fees for set deliverables
#2 Absolute clarity from the outset in terms of investment, activity and outputs
#3 Agreed performance targets
#4 Commitment to results-driven, transparent campaigns ensure we truly deliver for clients
#5 Formal service level agreement with a pro-rata fee rebate if targets are missed
#6 Specialist teams dedicated to content, digital, creative and media

You may be familiar with the conventional PR model – paying for hours on a monthly retainer

with very little commitment or transparency from the agency to what you will actually get for that investment. This has always struck me as a problematic model for clients, and I know from the conversations we have with current and prospective clients that I’m not wrong. The retainer model encourages agencies to be inefficient. If the agency needs to rewrite an article three times, that comes at the cost to the client. Why should the client be punished for agency mistakes?

At Whiteoaks we are deliberately different. We set-up our model to be results-focused – we want you to know from the outset what we’ll be delivering for you. We don’t want to talk to you about hours and retainers because we know that this isn’t a good way for you to invest your PR spend. Instead, we make strategic campaign recommendations based on your brief, and then give you complete transparency on what we will deliver, over what timeframe, and what the exact cost per item will be. That means you know from the start what you’re paying for and exactly what you’re getting. We can be flexible too; if your needs change mid-campaign we can adjust the deliverables and outputs accordingly.

The differences don’t stop there. It’s not all about activity – results are the real measure of success. Having agreed the deliverables with you, we will also put in place guaranteed performance targets such as coverage volume and key message penetration. These metrics will depend on the type of campaign we’re running (for example, success will look different between social media and traditional media relations campaigns) but these are all agreed upfront to make sure we’re delivering a true return on your investment. And we’re so confident in delivering these results for you that we offer all of our clients a formal service level agreement with a pro-rata fee rebate if we miss the targets set at the start of the campaign.

Another common frustration we see with prospects is lots of PR agencies use a team of generalists to execute the campaign. It is unrealistic to expect that everyone is great at everything; people have different strengths and skills they can bring to the team. We utilise this by employing teams of specialists. Instead of having a team do a bit of everything – you’ll have someone dedicated to each discipline. That means a media specialist, content creator, creative designer and social media specialist working on your campaign alongside your dedicated account team. This guarantees you a consistent stream of quality outputs because they are always delivered by those best suited to that discipline.

Our dedicated practice streams

We’re proud to be deliberately different in the PR industry and have provided some of the most exciting brands in the tech industry with a unique approach to guaranteeing ROI on their PR investment.

If you want to learn more about our model please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

By Bekki Bushnell, Head of Business Development

A good client-agency relationship is a partnership. At least it should be. But too often it’s relegated to a transactional relationship – something we hear often in a new business environment.

One of the problems is the length of the relationship. In 1984, the average client-agency relationship tenure was 7.2 years. By 1997, that number declined by 25% to 5.3 years. Today the average client-agency tenure is thought to be less than three years. If that number continues to fall, people will be switching agencies every 6 months!

Trust is the most pivotal part of any working relationship now more than ever. If your agency doesn’t earn your trust early on then it’ll be very hard to get impactful results. While it’s the agency’s responsibility to gain the trust – you as the client need to give them the chance to prove themselves so that they can churn out the results for you, the client.

What’s needed to build a lasting long term relationship and ensure your long-term growth? What should you expect from your PR agency? While the list isn’t exhaustive, here are my 7 things:

#1 Responsiveness
Your agency should have consistent communication with your team to make sure they’re aligned with you. They should be learning everything they can about your business. Agencies need to ask the right questions to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. By doing so the media relations and content writing team can translate the passion that you have for the business to the media and your audience to create impactful storylines.

#2 Proactiveness
On the other side of the coin, your team needs to show the initiative to get the campaign moving and maintain momentum. This doesn’t mean not giving them any input into content ideas or strategy, but it does mean they have the know-how and experience to identify opportunities, make suggestions, look for new angles and create campaigns without being spoon-fed.

#3 Valuable deliverables
It’s not enough to expect just some ROI numbers based on advertising equivalents anymore. We’ve moved way past that and there are so many more metrics to consider. Which means it’s good to agree with your agency what you exactly want and expect from a campaign. Whether that’s lead generation, raising awareness, social link clicks from coverage, volume of coverage, targeted press etc. These should be established at the start so that the campaign can be tailored around the deliverables and then continually tracked and measured against throughout the relationship.

#4 Onboarding sessions
Your agency should be taking the time to get to know you and an effective way to do this is onboarding sessions. The agency needs time with your wider to team to understand the company messages and its business goals. Without your input, even the best PR team will struggle to get good results. In addition, these sessions shouldn’t be a one-off, but can add real value throughout the relationship and as your business and goals evolve.

#5 Good industry knowledge
Most agencies will already have a good understanding of your industry due to previous experience but if you are a new area to them, then the agency needs to get up to speed on the latest trends and news stories. And keep up to date. A lot of this information can be gleaned from the onboarding sessions and early-stage research.

#6 Creativity
This is the one that is at the top of the list for many clients. Creativity is the ingredient that is going to make you stand out from the others and will stick in the mind of the customer and shouldn’t be forgotten in the B2B world. It’s an integral part of every campaign. So, of course, creativity is something to expect from your agency. It’s what many agencies invest a lot of money in to make sure they’ve got the edge.

#7 Specialist team
Are your team playing to their strengths? This may seem obvious but it’s missed by a lot of people. A lot of the time PR agencies use a team of generalists – everyone does a bit of everything from media relations to content writing. While this is a great experience for the team, it’s not beneficial for the client. You want everyone playing to their strengths, which means having a dedicated content writer that knows your tone of voice and consistently churns out high-quality content. A dedicated media relations specialist who can focus on the relationship with the journalists to guarantee placements in top tier publications. These are the people that will be working on your account day in day out so make sure to know they’re utilising everyone’s skills.

Choosing an agency can be a long and painful process but hopefully, my 7 tips make the next time you switch agency a bit less painful and will go a long way to cementing that long-term relationship with your next agency.

By John Broy, Chief Client Officer